Matt Kindt is determined to make a crazy old guy in a wheelchair the baddest man on the planet.

Dr. Silk and his criminal organization Webnet are getting a reboot for 2014 in the pages of Valiant Comics' crossover superteam book Unity beginning in March in a three-part story focusing on fan-favorite MI6 operative Ninjak.

The first Unity arc — issue No. 2 is out Dec. 11 — centers on Toyo Harada (of Harbinger fame) forming a group including Ninjak, Livewire and the Eternal Warrior to tackle the powerful Aric of Dacia (aka X-O Manowar), his new Visigoth state in what used to be Romania and a potential nuclear conflict.

Written by Kindt and illustrated by Cafu, Unity No. 5 (in comic shops and online March 12) kicks off the new three-part "Trapped by Webnet" story line reintroducing Silk, Ninjak's crippled old arch enemy from the 1990s Valiant comics. The villain's back — and with a mysterious connection to Ninjak — to unleash a global pandemic to wipe out humanity.

And, no, it's not a zombie virus or the typical coughing-up-blood kind of problem.

Instead this is "something a little more creepy than that — and Silk is most likely responsible. The beauty of the killer-virus trope in this story, though, is not that it's happening, but why it's happening," says Kindt, who is also illustrating an incentive No. 5 variant cover.

"Silk has such a great backstory and when it's finally revealed, you're going to hopefully really hate him but also feel really sorry for him at the same time. He's a tragic figure who is intent on causing more tragedy."

Just like the old version, this updated Silk is still crazy and still in a wheelchair —"sort of," Kindt teases — but with some improvements.

"I've put a lot of thought into this character and one of the things that makes him interesting is that he's crazy smart, not just crazy," the writer says. "So I'm really focusing on that and hand in hand with that is his age. He's kind of a withered old guy, which implies a lot of history. So part of his intrigue is going to be what he's done in the past and how it's going to effect our present."

Harada up till now has leaned toward being an antagonist since the 2012 Valiant relaunch, but his motivation is "generally good," Kindt says. "He just does a lot of bad to get there.

"We can only beat up on Harada so much in the Valiant U."

But Silk is an honest-to-goodness villain that in Kindt's mind can be the equivalent of a Doctor Doom for Valiant's heroes.

The revamped Dr. Silk is "driven by hubris but also jealousy and heartbreak," says "Unity" writer Matt Kindt.(Photo: Valiant Comics)

"His motivations will be very real but what's driving him is completely different than Harada," Kindt says. "Silk is driven by hubris but also jealousy and heartbreak. So he'll be very human, and also very, very bad."

With Webnet being a terrorist cell, the writer is leaning into the realism — he's done a bunch of research on modern intelligence and counterintelligence as well as how special-ops teams really work — but maintaining the sense of a fun comic-book story.

"That's how I approach every story I've ever done: take a fantastic premise — in this case, a superhero team full of malcontents, misogynists and barbarians — and then ask the question, 'What would that be like but for real?' and everything comes out of that," Kindt says.

"The premise can be completely nuts, and that's the creative part, but the real fun is imagining how that will all play out in the real world."

Aric's relationship with/against the Unity team, will be substantially different by the end of the first arc, and they'll need him against Silk, Kindt says. "The circumstances of his presence are going to be interesting to say the least."

They'll also be finally working together and interacting in a way that isn't completely dysfunctional.

"Dr. Silk is a little more clear-cut as a threat compared to Harada," Kindt says, "so the dilemma they face will be less about 'What do we do?' and more about 'Do I have to work with Ninjak? He's such a (jerk).' "

The reveal of Silk's history will have ripple effects for the team — "things that will impact them all and the next 2,000 years," Kindt says, a potential foreshadowing to the upcoming "4001 AD" story in Eternal Warrior — as well as for the enigmatic Ninjak.

"I mean, he's the coolest guy on the team and in the Valiant U. The problem is, he knows that so he acts like it," the writer says. "And in a team of type-A personalities, he's going to be the type-A that's triple-underlined."